


Under the Covers

by d0g-bless (d0gbless)



Series: Shidgemas 2018 [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Borrowed Shirts, Christmas Eve, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 15:10:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17045999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d0gbless/pseuds/d0g-bless
Summary: All Pidge wanted was a place with a nice bed and a complimentary breakfast.What she got instead was a night in the honeymoon suite with the coworker she'd been crushing on for the past three years.





	Under the Covers

**Author's Note:**

> Shidgemas Day 2: **Candlelight** / ~~Starlight~~

Pidge slams her hands down at the airline’s desk. “What do you mean the connecting flight was cancelled?” Her voice is harsher, shriller than she intends it to be.

The murmuring line behind her goes dead silent, save for the cries of infants and small children.

The stewardess doesn’t even flinch. She’s dealt with this before. A real veteran, this one. “Ma’am, there is a blizzard. Visibility is dangerously low. I suggest you gather your luggage and find a place to stay.”

Pidge grimaces. Like that’ll ever happen on Christmas Eve. Of all times for her to get stuck on a business trip due to shit weather. She storms off toward the baggage claim, radiating an aura of unadulterated rage, then remembers the one good, positive thing, the equivalent of the sun’s rays piercing through a thundercloud.

Takashi Shirogane, a god amongst men, an Adonis with a heart of gold, signals for Pidge to join him. He smiles like he’s about to hear the best news ever, and Pidge’s innards drop to the recently mopped airport floor. It’s just not fair, she tells herself, to have a crush on someone who is so plainly out of her league. She reminds herself not to get too far ahead — surely he didn’t ask to go on this business trip with her.

“What’s the deal with our flight?”

And now it’s up to her to crush that stupidly handsome smile. “It’s cancelled. All planes are grounded until the weather clears up.” She whips out her phone and shows him the weather radar, because if she looks at him for a second more she just might implode. “Doesn’t look like it’s going to go away any time soon.”

“Oh.” His smile falters a bit. “Well, at least we didn’t have plans for Christmas, right?”

“Yeah.” Pidge peeks around him, squinting her eyes in pursuit of her suitcase. Her laptop is in there, and maybe she could get some work done. “Did you get your stuff yet?” She immediately regrets the question because he clearly does not have his suitcase.

He shakes his head, then glances down to his phone. “Shit.”

Pidge’s eyes widen. She’s never heard Shiro curse before, not ever. Maybe that’s because they’ve usually been together in professional situations. “Everything okay?”

“We won’t be getting our luggage tonight. It’s been delayed, too. And my phone battery is not going to last through the night.”

Pidge’s hand instinctively brushes over her over-the-shoulder purse. “I can handle the battery. I always have a spare charger. Now we need to find a place to stay.”

“I’m working on it.” Shiro presses his phone against his ear. “Consider us even for the charger.” He walks away, eight paces in the opposite direction, then returns after another eight. He paces back and forth like this, like he’s confined to a small room, as he talks over the phone. He shakes his head, pinches his temples, and sighs: _No luck._

Pidge watches these fruitless exchanges and realizes something about Shiro: She’s never seen him wear anything with short sleeves. And he always wears a glove or has one hand bandaged up for some injury he seems to have every few days.

“I found a place,” he says, a little breathless. “It might be a little… weird, but —”

“I don’t care,” she says, perhaps too quickly. “I just want a place with a nice bed and a complimentary breakfast.”

He bites his bottom lip and says, “Okay,” and nothing else.

* * *

Against all odds given the visibility in this storm, Shiro manages to hail a taxi, his arm draped around a shivering Pidge. Ever the gentleman, he opens the door and gestures for her to go first. “Didn’t you bring your coat?” he asks.

Pidge somehow gets her teeth to stop chattering long enough to get a one-syllable answer out: “No.” She’s so cold she can’t even process the fact that Shiro’s arm hadn’t moved from its position on her shoulder until it’s gone. The weight of his arm is replaced by his coat. “Th-thanks.” The chill in the air fogs up her glasses, blinding her to Shiro’s reddening face and pounding heart.

He’s unusually quiet, and Pidge feels the need to fill the air with something. “So, uh, what sort of a room did you end up getting us?”

The taxi skids to a halt, somehow narrowly avoiding rear ending the vehicle in front of it. Shiro pays the driver and offers a gloved hand.

Pidge takes it without hesitation.

Shiro’s breaths are shorter, and Pidge can tell by the higher frequency of steam puffs floating through the air. “Pidge,” he says. “I, um… I’ll need you to just go along with me, alright?”

Her brows furrow. What could he mean by that? “Um, I’m already with you.”

“Right.” He snakes an arm around her waist and mutters an apology when she squeaks. “We’ve gotta make this look convincing,” he says quietly, almost but not quite hissing through his teeth, as he and Pidge make their way into the hotel lobby.

“Make what —”

“Ah! You must be Takashi!” An overzealous concierge claps his hands upon Shiro and Pidge’s entrance. “Please, please, do come in! Do you have any bags? Oh, dearie me, I must take you to your suite, first! Then we’ll bring in your luggage.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Shiro interjects. “The airline lost ours for the time being.”

At this point, Pidge is too confused to ask what the fuck’s going on, though every part of her wants to know why Shiro’s wrapped an arm around her waist and why they’re following this concierge who looks far too invested in whatever it is she and Shiro are doing.

The concierge stops at a door, and Shiro and Pidge follow suit as they wait for him to unlock the door and hand over the keys. “Congratulations, you two. Now, if there’s anything you need from us, do not hesitate to ask. Also, I insist you come to our special dinner tonight.” He presses the key into Shiro’s palm, and Pidge swears the concierge just winked at Shiro.

“Well, that could’ve been… worse.” Shiro hits the light switch.

Shiro is wrong. When the lights flicker on, so does the horror of the room before them: A heart-shaped bed with blood red blankets covered in rose petals. Pre-lit candles are arranged all around the room in a heart shape, flickering beneath the less than flattering ceiling lights.

“My God,” Pidge says. “You got us a honeymoon suite.” She runs her hand along the crimson comforter and tangles her hand in a corner of white lace. “I didn’t think they even existed.”

“It’s all they had left,” Shiro admits, seating himself on a loveseat. “Everything else wasn’t taken, and I know that a lot of hotels still have these things…” he trails off. “I mean, my uncle owned a hotel like this one, so I kind of know the business and stuff pretty well.”

So not only is Shiro handsome, but he’s probably filthy rich, too. Go figure.

“Um, so I’ll go ahead and take the floor, then.”

Pidge spits out a nervous laugh. “There’s plenty of room for both of us.”

Shiro arches a brow, like he didn’t expect Pidge to want to sleep with him. (Next to him.) “Are you sure? I don’t… I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m wearing jeans. I couldn’t be more uncomfortable,” she jokes.

“Sorry,” he says, too sweet, too gentle, too… something. “I should’ve asked you.”

Pidge lifts her shoulders in a half shrug. She begins to open her mouth to say something, reassure Shiro that he meant well, and that she was fine with this situation (though her heart raced knowing she was _this close_ to Shiro), but instead her stomach growled.

“Dinner now, fight over sleeping arrangements later?”

* * *

“Table for two, please.” Shiro tries to fight the heat prickling up from the nape of his neck to his face, but it’s hard when the woman he’s been in love with for the past three years is right by his side.

He wants to, so badly, wrap an arm around her narrow frame, whether it be over her shoulders or around her waist.

“Room number?” the waiter asks.

“100,” Pidge answers.

The waiter’s eyes glow in a way that almost scares Shiro. “¡Mi Dio!” he exclaims. “I totally didn’t realize, oh it is so obvious, too, you reserved the honeymoon suite, right?” He smacks his forehead with a hand. “Duh, of course you did, that’s room 100. Congratulations.” He sighs longingly. “You two must be _so_ in love. I can see it in your faces.”

Shiro prays Pidge isn’t looking at him. He glances at her out of the corner of his eye. Her expression is unreadable, and Shiro’s stomach twists with guilt.

As much as he’s wanted to ask Pidge out to dinner, on a date, he didn’t want her to be doing something like this. Sure, he’s a bit of an old-fashioned romantic, but even Shiro knows tacky when he sees it, like when the table for two comes into view as he and Pidge follow the waiter, who guides them through the jungle that is this restaurant.

A sheer curtain is brushed aside with a wave of the waiter’s hand, like jungle overgrowth sliced away from a machete blade. “This is the reserved spot for newlyweds.”

A red velvet cloth covers the table. It smells like mothballs and something that hasn’t seen the light of day in at least two years. Wax drips from a pair of flickering candles onto the table cloth. And of course, there are rose petals everywhere.

Shiro knows Pidge has allergies, and he hopes he hasn’t just doomed her to an evening of misery. Correction: He already has. Maybe not misery, but maybe he’d just damned her to the worst business trip of her life.

But then he sees her smile shyly at him as she sits down at the table.

 _Maybe it’s not so bad after all,_ he thinks.

“My name is Lance, and I will be your server this evening. What can I get you to drink?”

“Water will be fine,” Shiro says.

Lance clicks his tongue. “ _Please,_ we are celebrating your wedding _._ ”

“Jasmine tea, please.”

Shiro looks at Pidge with a mildly surprised expression. “Changed my mind,” he says. “Make it two jasmine teas.”

“No wine?”

Shiro shakes his head. “I don’t drink.”

“Suit yourself.” Lance hustles off to get the drinks, leaving his diners to their own devices for a few minutes.

“So,” Shiro starts, uncertain of where he’s going with this. “You’re a tea drinker? I didn’t know that.”

If this were a date — and it most certainly was not — Pidge would have said, “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.” Instead, she merely watched the candle’s flame flicker as she talked. “Yeah. I prefer coffee, but at this hour, it’s best to keep the caffeine to a minimum.”

“I like jasmine tea because it helps with my nerves.” The moment the words slip out of Shiro’s mouth, regret sinks back in.

“You? Nervous?” Pidge’s expression is a far away from the blank one she wore earlier. Surprise widens her eyes and raises her eyebrows. Shiro is the most confident person she’s ever held a conversation with. The very idea of Shiro being nervous is a hard one to swallow. “I mean, I don’t see it, but maybe that’s because I’m just riddled with anxiety 24/7.”

Shiro chuckles. “Maybe.”

Lance returns with a steaming hot kettle and jasmine tea bags. “Is there anything else I can get you two lovebirds?”

“More time?” Pidge asks. “We haven’t really looked over the menu yet.”

“More time, coming right up!”

* * *

It takes at least four more visits from Lance until Pidge and Shiro finally read even a single word on their menus.

Pidge settles on ordering baked ziti, and Shiro takes whatever she’ll be having.

The pasta dish comes out of the oven, delivered personally by the head chef, Hunk Garrett. Each and every bite tastes impossibly good and out-of-this-world, like such a dish had fallen from the heavens above.

“That one might give my mom’s recipe for the run,” Pidge informs Shiro, who wonders what else Pidge’s mom can cook — better yet, what Pidge can cook.

“Not much,” she says. “I make a mean peanut butter sandwich, but that’s about the extent of my skills.”

“Sounds like we’re on the same page. Maybe we both need cooking lessons?”

“Maybe.”

Shiro pays the bill in full, though he can sense Pidge’s insistence that she pay him back, or at least her half or portion of the bill.

She refuses, absolutely refuses, to let that go. It takes the realization that they haven’t figured out sleeping arrangements yet for her to drop the argument… and the fact she doesn’t have her pyjamas.

“I am not going to be able to sleep. I might as well take the floor.”

“Pidge—”

She shakes her head. “I’m sure, alright?”

“Just take my shirt.”

Pidge stares at him, dumbstruck at the suggestion and the glimpse of those ridiculous pecs as he unbuttons his shirt. Shouldn’t such a sacred thing be left to his significant other? (Looking at him, there’s no way Shiro could be single. No way.) “I—”

“Please,” he says. “I insist.”

“If you insist.”

“I do.” He peels his shirt off, revealing what it is he’s been hiding for so long: A prosthetic arm. Illuminated by candlelight.

“Whoa, it’s so cool! Man, if I’d studied medicine, this is definitely the sort of medicine I’d want to study. Prosthetics are amazing, aren’t they?”

Shiro shrugs. “It is what it is.” And it is. He lost his arm when a drunk driver crushed his car and everything inside it. The only thing the doctors couldn’t quite repair was his arm’s function.

He waits for Pidge to ask questions about what had happened, but she doesn’t. She’s mesmerized by the device itself. “I’ve never seen anything like it. May I touch it?” she asks.

He’s never let anyone other than himself touch it. He doesn’t like his arm. It brings back painful memories… but maybe letting Pidge touch it would be alright. “Sure.”

“If you don’t want me to, it’s really alright.”

“Go ahead.” He holds it out, and she gasps in delight.

“This is amazing. It lights up, too?”

“Just purple.”

“It needs green, too.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s my favorite color.”

Shiro laughs. “I’ll have to consider it.” And he means it. He really, truly does. “Anyways, I’ll give you some privacy if you want it while you change.” He turns around to face the corner of the room. “I can’t see you, I promise.”

“Good,” Pidge jokes. “Because if you did, I might have to report you to HR.” She slips out of her skinny jeans and shimmies into Shiro’s button-up. While it might have fit Shiro like a glove, it’s practically a night dress on her. She’s just a cap away from looking like Ebenezer Scrooge, which is remarkable improvement considering she’d usually be short a candle. But not here in this suite, where the flickers of candles are everywhere.

“Can I look now?”

“Yeah.”

Shiro turns around, and his breath gets caught in his throat. She’s so beautiful, her creamy skin revealed as his shirt hangs slightly off her shoulder. “I could kiss you right now,” he says softly, softly enough for Pidge to hear it.

“Then do it.”

He does. He gently cups her face in his hands, tracing the sharp angles of her jawbone and cheekbones, tangling his fingers in her tousled hair as his lips try to devour hers, scraping up against one another in a fight for breath, for air, for love.

Together, they take what they started and finish it beneath the covers.


End file.
